Toyota says on track for record full-year profit

TOKYO: Toyota on Wednesday said it was on track to book a record $17.5 billion full-year net profit, as the company also lifted its revenue estimate, citing a weak yen and cost cutting.

The world’s biggest automaker also revised up its fiscal year net profit forecast to 2.0 trillion yen from an earlier 1.78 trillion yen, and said full-year revenue would come in at 26.5 trillion yen, from a previous 25.7 trillion yen estimate.

Full-year operating income would be 2.5 trillion yen, it added, although the automaker said it expected to sell 9.05 million vehicles in the year to March, down from an earlier 9.1 million units.

“This reflects the progress in our profit improvement activities through marketing and cost reduction efforts, the change in our foreign exchange rates assumption, along with a decrease in vehicle sales and an increase in fixed costs, particularly (research and development) expenses,” Toyota executive vice president Nobuyori Kodaira said in a statement.

The upgraded forecasts came as Toyota booked a 1.13 trillion yen net profit for the six months through September, up from 1.00 trillion yen a year ago.